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Childhood ain’t what it was

Wednesday 10th May, 2017

Something strange is happening to American children. According to a new study the number of children and adolescents who have been admitted to hospital in the past decade, and who think about suicide or self-harm, has more than doubled.

The study gathers data from 32 hospitals across the US, and counts all emergency and in-patient events of the 5-17 year age group between 2008-2015.

It says: “The annual percentage of all encounters identified as suicidality or self-harm more than doubled over the study period, increasing from 0.67% in 2008 to 1.79% in 2015. Slightly more than half the patients with suicidal thoughts or actions (totalling 59,631) were with 15- to 17-year-olds, while 36.9% (43,682) were with 12-14-year-olds. An additional 12.7% (15,050) of the encounters were with children between ages 5 and 11.”